Prior computer platforms have been symmetric multi processors (SMP) arrangements where multiple CPUs are running a single copy of the operating system (OS). The OS provides time sharing services to allow multiple applications to run. However, this arrangement permits the applications to interfere with each other. For example, if the system is running an accounting application, the accounting application can allocate all the memory in the system, as well as use all the processors that the OS can allocate. Then, when some other application, for example a manufacturing application, would not be able to allocate any memory or processors for its needs, and therefore would freeze. Thus, the manufacturing application would have been frozen or impacted by the accounting application. This arrangement also leaves the system vulnerable to failures. Any problem with one application would corrupt the resources for all applications.
A known solution to this problem is to separate the computer system into partitions. These partitions are hardware separations which place resources into separate functional blocks. Resources can be flexibly assigned to partitions. Resources in one block do not have direct access to resources in another block. This prevents one application from using the entire system resources, as well as contains faults and errors. An example of such a system is the Sun Microsystems UE10K.
This solution presents its own problem, namely system support and management. The assignment of hardware resources to partitions is flexible, and yet the user needs to be able to monitor and control the operation of the multiple partitions and the hardware assigned to them, to perform operational and diagnostic and debugging functions. These capabilities need to be provided regardless of the configuration of the partitions.